How to Rank on Page One of Google

Let’s face it, one of your Holy Grails as an online marketer and online entrepreneur is to figure out how to rank on page one of Google. I wish I could tell you that you only need to read a book or download and install a piece of software for this to happen. Unfortunately, figuring out how to rank on page one of Google is a work of a lifetime. It really is.

The reason this is the case is because Google is evolving faster than a virus. It used to be the case that Google would only update its algorithm after every few years. You can safely bet that your online marketing empire would remain intact for five or four years at a time. This is no longer the case. In fact, Google is constantly rolling out update after update of its algorithms. Also, its algorithms tend to be more and more aggressive.

Put all these factors together and you can see why a lot of dotcom millionaires that used to make a tremendous amount of money by simply targeting the right lucrative keywords are no longer as lucky. In fact a lot of people have lost a lot of money trying to game Google. If you’re really serious about figuring out how to rank on page one of Google, follow the steps below.

Start with a clear plan based on niche-specific useful and valuable content

The rules of the game as far as Google ranking is concerned is to focus on valuable content. This makes a lot of sense because Google is all about adding value to the lives of people that use that search engine. If you’re able to do that then you increase the likelihood that Google would rank your material highly. That’s the bottom line. It’s all about producing content that adds value to people’s lives. This content must be specific to certain niches. This content must speak to people’s specific needs. That’s the first step.

Address your niche’s audience needs in a helpful way

There are many different ways to address people’s needs. For example, if you know that people are looking to learn more about plastic surgery you can publish a glossary of plastic surgery terms. You can also publish plastic surgery images and pictures. You can do all sorts of things to address that niche audience’s needs. The problem with this approach is that not all of them are going to be helpful. Some approaches would be more helpful than others.

This is why I highly suggest that you research questions people ask regarding your target niche. This is a slam dunk approach. Why? Most people process information based on questions. Most people integrate new information based on how well they answer questions. Most people don’t look at images. Most people don’t look at diagrams. A lot of people couldn’t care less about that stuff. As powerful as video may be, not everybody can engage with video because, let’s face it, you often need to have some sort of background information in your head before you can maximize the value you get from a particular video. Do you see where I’m headed with this?

To make things as simple as possible for yourself, focus on a question and answer format. The more you focus on questions, the higher the likelihood that you can appeal to your niche audience’s needs.

Write long content

Another valuable piece of advice I can give you as far as ranking on Google is concerned is to write long content. According to scientific studies that are done by marketing companies, the closer your content gets to 1,500 words, the higher the likelihood you would get traffic from Google. I don’t know why this is the case. My guess is the more words you have in a particular piece of content, the more hooks you have with Google. In other words, there are many different words Google can attach to to rank your particular piece of content.

Format your long content into subheadings

The problem with writing very long content is the very real danger that you would lose your reader. You have to remember that people don’t have the luxury of time. Most people are very busy. In fact, thanks to the huge amount of content being published in the Internet every single day, people have developed attention deficit disorder. You have this working against you. So to maximize readability you need to break down those 1,500 words into easy-to-read, bite-sized pieces. The best way to do this is to use subheadings with emotional triggers.

When somebody looks at a large block of text it’s very easy for them to get intimidated. However, if they look at the same text broken down into smaller pieces like, maybe, twenty different pieces and they are well-spaced apart using easier to read fonts, it’s easier to consume that content. I hope you can see the value in formatting your long content the right way.

Context is crucial

When publishing your content make sure that you use many different keywords. You’re not doing this to stuff your content with keywords. Make no mistake about it, keyword stuffing no longer works. The reason why you’re doing this is to create context. When different but related keywords are found in the same page, Google is able to make different thematic connections and this increases the likelihood that your content will rank higher for keywords related to that specific context.

Use relevant images

As part of your efforts at making your content as readable as possible, try to put relevant images with your content. Don’t just use random images to break boredom. That’s not going to work. Use relevant images that really help explain and add value to your content. One of the best ways to do this is to create derivative content. What I mean by this is you create content quotes, header quotes with text on it or infographics. You might even create a mini book that you have compiled based on the blog post. Whatever you do always remember that this derivative content will not only make your content more exciting and easier to read, but it will also give you more hooks as far as SEO is concerned.

Share your derivative content and tag away

As I mentioned earlier you can use derivative content to get more SEO hooks. One of the best ways to do this is to share your derivative content with social media platforms that specialize in that type of content. For example, if you make derivative images from your blog post share those images on Pinterest or Tumblr. If you made PDFs or books from your blog post share that content on the hundreds of free document upload websites. I hope you see where I’m going with this.

There are tons of social media platforms out there and they tend to specialize in certain social media types. Create derivative content from one blog post so you can maximize the promotional mileage you get with one piece of content. The name of the game is to work once and benefit many times all over.

Create a presence on all major social media platforms

I know I told you in the previous section above that you need to create derivative content and distribute them across a wide range of social media platforms. To maximize the benefits that you get from this step, you need to create professional social media presences. What I mean by this is you need to go on Fiverr, get a special cover made for Twitter which is different from your presence on Facebook which is very different from your presence on Pinterest.

You then unite all your different social media presences based on brand logo uniformity. You then cross-promote. What I mean by this is when you post specialized content on Pinterest, you tell people in Pinterest about it so they can then go on Facebook, and once you’re there on Facebook you can then tell them about your specialized content you have on Twitter.

If you do this right you are basically sucking up traffic from all these different social media platforms and then driving them to your website which acts as your filter. This is how you maximize the SEO benefits of social media signals. As Google keeps insisting social media signals in of themselves don’t rank you. However the more pervasive your content is on all social media platforms, the higher the likelihood that you will get tangible SEO benefits from this type of promotion.

Reach to relevant websites and contribute content

Once you’ve become a credible brand on social media websites and you have published high-quality content, the next step is to reach out. You have to remember that regardless of how esoteric your niche is there will always be other websites who are very interested in what you have to say. You just need to figure out who these websites are and reach out to them by using your website as your calling card. You tell them that, “I’ve created a website that is stocked with highly influential and highly useful information”. If you did your homework right, these websites would not hesitate to publish contributed content. This content of course links back to your website.

Get interview

If you were able to reach out to so many different websites and they publish your contributed content regularly, this increases the likelihood that they would want to interview you. Why? If you keep getting published this means that whatever you’re saying is valuable. This means that you’re an authority. This means that if they publish whatever it is you have to say, you add value to their sites. You then become a person who is worth interviewing. Make no mistake about it, the more you get interviewed in your niche, the higher Google will rank you. It may not happen overnight but if you keep this up, it can definitely happen in the future.

The bottom line: Become an authority!

The bottom line is to become an authority. The more you produce high-quality content, the more you share them in social media, the more other brands will pay attention to you. When other brands pay attention to you there is a high likelihood that they would want to interview you.

The more you get interviewed, the more you become a solid brand. Once you become a solid brand in your niche you become an authority. The moment you reach authority status, Google is looking at your brand as an asset. Why? Google knows that your content can be trusted.

Google knows that you’re not going to screw around so as to destroy the value of your brand. This increases the likelihood that you will rank number one on Google for certain keywords regularly instead of by accident.